Software vendors may earn the bulk of their revenue through either fees charged for the licensed use of their software, or through fees charged for professional services related to their software. Vendors who charge substantial professional services fees may charge minimal or no licensing fees, and thus the primary component of the total cost of ownership (TCO) borne by their customers is professional services fees. A portion of these professional services fees are typically necessitated to address operational events that impact customer data centers. Thus, the more frequently that operational events arise, the higher the TCO borne by customers.
For vendors who choose to collect the bulk of their revenue via licensing fees, and not rely heavily on professional services revenue, there exists a continuing need to enable the vendors to decrease the TCO borne by their customers by continually improving the vendors' software. One way to improve software and to reduce TCO is to anticipate operational events that arise on customer sites, and quickly address them. The teachings herein address this need and other shortcomings in the art.